The Fisher King, part 2
by jayer
Summary: they have been drawn into a mad game, but who will win no spoilers, just theories
1. Chapter 1

"What happened?"

"He knows where we live. He must have followed her. Or went there to leave some kind of warning."

"Spence." JJ's voice was frustrated. "Where's Elle?"

"She's gone."

JJ gasped. "Oh god."

"He's being literal, JJ." Derek said, knowing it wasn't much of a comfort. "She's gone. Missing."

"She's not dead."

"We don't know."

"Probably not." Spencer cut in. "If he had killed her, why take the body? Especially given his apparent injury. Removing the body would slow him down."

"Unless he had his delivery guy there."

"Still doesn't make sense that he wouldn't leave her body. And he said he was waiting for all of us to find him. A reunion."

"Then let's find him." Derek dropped the bags of food they had gone to pick up on the table. After their detour, it was cold. But no one was really hungry anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

The silence was thick, suffocating. Minutes were ticking by.

Hotch stood staring at the various photos. He could hear a rapping noise. He turned and noticed Reid was nervously tapping his fingers on the table again. It was a habit the young man would revert back to when he was frustrated.

"It's going to be okay." He slipped into the adjoining chair and gently put his hand over Reid's. "We'll figure this out."

"I know this. I know. I just can't . . ." Reid rubbed his eyes.

"Reid, this isn't just about you. We're all stumped."

"The youngest holds the key."

"The key to the music box."

"It can't be that simple. He knew about the butterflies. He knew about Nellie Fox. He knows something about me. He knows it and he's using it in his game. I just can't. It's right there."

"You're exhausted."

"I'm fine."

"You've been sitting here for hours. You haven't slept or eaten. You're physically so tensed up that I can see it. You need to take a break."

"We don't have time."

"Yes we do. Take a nap, take a walk."

"Hotch, I'm really fine. Okay. I just need to figure this out."

"It's an order, Reid."

Reid looked up from the paper he'd been obsessively scrawling notes on all day. "Elle."

"Would kick my butt for letting you get worked up and making yourself sick."

"Take a shower at least." Morgan said from across the room. "You're starting to stink."

"Ha, ha." Reid balled up a piece of paper and tossed it at Morgan's head.

"He's right, though." Hotch said with a soft smile. "You are looking a bit wrinkled."

"I guess I could. Shake off some cobwebs." Reid stood and stretched.

Reid retrieved his suitcase from his desk. He ignored the questioning looks as he headed down the locker room. It was thankfully empty.

Moments later, he was standing under the hot spray, feeling the muscles in his back and neck relax.

It had been a hell of a weekend. He'd left torn about going home. Even though he'd sent letters to his mother several times a week, sometimes daily, he hadn't seen his mother in the four years since he'd left to join the FBI. His mother had been less than thrilled about his career choice, wanting him to become a professor. He'd always assumed it was a mother's fear for her child, especially after his father's sudden death.

Now he wanted nothing more than to go back home and go back to the days before. Before he was in the FBI, before his father died, before his mother had become too sick to care for herself. He wanted to go back to the days of playing chess with his father while his mother made dinner. Of curling up with his mother at bedtime. With his memory, they could never read the same book twice. They had blazed through all the standard bedtime tales -- Amelia Bedelia, Curious George, Winnie the Pooh -- by the time he was three. By the time he was six, they were reading Chaucer, Dante, Kempe. His mother had taught a summer class on Arthurian Legend and they'd spent three glorious months reading about Arthur and Merlin, Avalon, the Round table. Spencer had loved the tales of Lancelot and Galahad and Percival. Percival was his mother's favorite. She'd received a book offer after she published a prize winning paper on the allegorical aspects of the legend of Percival and the Fisher King.

"The Fisher King." It hit him like a bolt of lightening. Spencer turned off the water, hastily dried off and pulled on a clean pair of cords. He was lacing up his shoes at the elevator reached the six floor and Spencer pulled his shirt on as he raced down the hall.

"Slow down, Archimedes." Morgan jumped out of his way.

"Actually that's very appropriate." Spencer laughed. "Just as Archimedes had a sudden realization while bathing . . ."

"You solved the case while shaving?"

"Washing my hair actually."

"Yeah that mint shampoo really energizes the brain cells."

"And doesn't dry out the hair follicles which leads to breakage and flyaways."

"Did you just make a funny?"

"Yeah."

"Elle would be so proud."


	3. Chapter 3

"I should have made the connection. The baseball card, the butterfly, attacking Elle at home. He clearly wants us to know that he knows us. He's studied us, From Garcia told JJ about the game, he must have figured out who she was and had been targetting her for weeks."

"When she was so hooked on all his romantic talk that she brought the laptop to work, it made his job easier. But what how does that give us any new information?"

Spencer looked around the room. Only one person knew what the unsub did about him. His deep, dark secret.

"The unsub also knew about me. About me and my mother. He didn't just find me in Vegas. He found me at the hospital. He had the key delivered there."

"Hospital?" Derek looked at him, curious.

"For the past three years, my mother has been a resident of the Bennington Sanitarium. It's about a hour outside of Las Vegas." Spencer swallowed. Just saying it all out loud was making him feel sick. He hated the feeling.

"Your mother is . . ." Hotch asked softly.

"Schizophrenic. When I was younger, things were stable. No one knew there was anything wrong. My father made sure she took her medication and my brother and I grew used to her moods. When my father died, Michael was old enough to keep things together. But then he died and things sort of fell apart. We had an argument about my joining the FBI. After I left, my mother. I don't know exactly what happened. I just know that she was completely off her medication, she was a danger to herself."

"You had her committed."

Spencer nodded. "I didn't know what else to do."

"You think the unsub knows about all this."

"Yes. I think he knows everything. About my mother being crazy and about before."

"Before?"

"Before my mother had her breakdown, she was a college professor. 15th century literature. Her passion was women in the middle ages. Stories about them, stories by them. She used to tell me all sorts of stories. It was our bedtime ritual.

"One of the stories was about a young boy who dreamed of being a knight but his mother didn't want him to. His father and brothers had been knights and were killed in battle. Only noblemen could be Knights so she took him and ran off and lived as a peasant.

"One day a group of knights came by the land where they were farming. They were tired and thirsty and this young man offered them food and water. When they asked what they could do to thank him he told them that what he had always dreamed of was being a knight. But he couldn't because he was a peasant. But they invited him to join them anyway. And Percival said yes."

"Percival? Wasn't he one of the Knights of the Round Table."

"Yes. The youngest and typically viewed in the stories as the most innocent of heart. He was also one of the knights to go on a quest. Seeking the Holy Grail."

"The Holy Grail?"

"In one common version he is traveling with 5 fellow knights and they come across a castle by the sea. An old knight lives in the castle. He's been injured and can't fight anymore and just spends his days alone in this remote castle, only leaving to go down to the sea to catch fish to eat. But he has another task. He's been entrusted to protect a great treasure. A treasure that he can only reveal if the seeker asks him the correct question."

"Let me guess. He's got the Grail."

"In fact yes."

"And Percival asks the question and gets it."

"Not the first time. But eventually."

"And you think that our unsub knows that you would know this story and he's mocking it. Sees himself as this king and the girl is his holy grail and you, the youngest agent, are his Percival. A knight despite your widowed mother's wishes." Hotch shrugged. "it does seem to fit."

"There's something else."

"Yes?"

"My mother wrote a book. About the legend of Percival and the Fisher King. How the story was an allegory for the turmoil of the time."

"Please tell me you have a copy."

Spencer nodded. "It's at my apartment."

Derek grabbed his jacket. "I'll drive."


	4. Chapter 4

"Nothing." Spencer groaned. "I was sure. It fit"

"Yes, it did." Gideon set a cup of coffee down in front of him. "It made complete sense"

"We'll just come up with a new idea." Hotch nodded. "We'll go over everything. Again and again, no matter how long it takes until we figure it out"

"We have one thing on our side. He wants us to figure it out. He's given us the answer. And his end game has us all together. He won't hurt any of us"

"What about Elle"

"Reid is correct about Elle. If the unsub wanted to hurt her to punish us for breaking the rules, he would have left her body behind so we'd have the message loud and clear. He took her and he's keeping her alive"

They all looked up at sound of knocking. "Garcia." "I think I have something." She walked into the room hesistantly.

"What is it"

"I think I found the book. I mean I'm not sure. But I think I found it.

"After I pulled the files on Frank Giles and Marty Harris, I was going over the video, trying to find a clear image of the guy or a clue. Anything to help. I mean, I . . . "

"You didn't cause this. He would have just found some other way." Derek said sharply. Garcia flinched. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it"

"We're tired." Hotch cut in calmly. "We all want this over and we want Elle and Rebecca home. Anything you have that might help us -- "

"There was nothing in the video so I was thinking about the notes. Something about the one from the music box"

"Never would it be night, but always to clear day to men's sight"

"It sounds like something from a poem. And this guy is all about knights and ladies and things medieval and medieval means old and things that old are all public domain"

"And folks love to put stuff that is public domain in databases and websites"

"Yeah, so I started searching and I found this." Garcia pulled out a piece of paper. "It's a poem by Chaucer. From something called "the Parliament of Fowls. His note is the last line and a half"

"It's said to be the first true Valentine's Day poem"

"Fits with all the my fair lady talk."

"So." Garcia continued. "I thought maybe the book was a book of poems. I mean that would have pages and lines and words. But there were tons of books of Chaucer's works and medieval poetry and not all poetry collections are indexed. And he wants us to find the book so he wouldn't pick something with hundreds of choices.

"I thought it must have something to do with that poem. Maybe a book that uses that name as the title but there weren't any. And then I got to thinking that maybe it was a play on words. Like how he sent Reid the key to the box and told Gideon that the youngest had the key. But at the same time he kept sending us messages that Reid has to find the girl. Like Reid is the key to this guy's game"

"Garcia. What did you find"

"I'm getting there. I just. If I'm thinking wrong then my answer is wrong." Her voice was flustered. Her guilty feelings over the computer screwup were totally apparent. Having been cut out of most of the work, even with her inclusion in the unsub's taped instruction, must have come off as anger by the team. So while they had been hashing out the clues, running scenarios and debating profiles, she'd been off trying to find something to win back their good graces.

And she was completely correct. They all knew it. They had already had one mistake in logic. Already missed the answer. And no matter what they said, they didn't know that they had much time left. They needed to get the riddle solved as quickly as they could.

"I started playing with the words, different spellings and stuff. Looking for anything about a book and I found one. It's a book from 1963 called The Collector. The author's name is John Fowles. And he's from Great Britain"

She held out a piece of paper.

Reid took it and quickly scanned it. "Guys, Garcia could be on to something. Listen to this : a lonely young man, Frederick Clegg, who works as a clerk in a city hall, and collects butterflies in his free time. Clegg is attracted to Miranda Grey, an art student who he thinks is very beautiful. He admires her from a distance, but is unable to make any contact with her because of his nonexistent social skills. One day, he wins a large prize in the pools. This makes it possible for him to stop working and buy an isolated house in the countryside. He feels lonely, however, and wants to be with Grey. Unable to make any normal contact, Clegg decides to add her to his 'collection,' in hopes that if he keeps her captive long enough, she will grow to love him. After careful preparations, he kidnaps Grey and locks her up in the cellar of his house. He is convinced that the girl will start to love him after some time. However, when she wakes up, Grey confronts him with his actions. Clegg is embarrassed, and promises to let her go after a month. He promises to show her "every respect," pledging not to sexually molest her and to shower her with gifts and the comforts of home, on one condition: she can't leave the cellar"

"He did point out her beauty on the tape. And there was the butterfly he sent JJ. Maybe it wasn't just about telling us that he knows us"

"There's more." Garcia held out more pages. "He said in the video that the book we needed inspired adventures like his. So I searched for any mentions of the Collector being an inspiration for a kidnapping or murder. Since it was published, there have been over 40 murders where the killer claims they were inspired by the book. And there are literally hundreds of sites about killing, kidnapping, rape that all talk in detail about the book. Dozens of reviews by psychologists and profilers that say it's one of the most accurate portrayals of the mind of a psychopath ever to appear in a work of fiction"

"That's rather creepy"

"Sounds like a solid case that this is the book." Hotch, ever the lawyer, said. "But what edition. The book is foreign published and 40 years old. There's probably been at least a dozen different editions"

"You want the original 1963 British publication. Edited by a guy named John Cape"

"How can you be sure"

"It's right on the cover." She handed Hotch a copy of the book jacket. They all gasped as they looked at the photo. The cover was made up of a pale clouded yellow butterfly, a skeleton key and a lock of blonde hair tied with a pale red ribbon. Just like the clues the unsub had sent them.

"Penelope, find us a copy." Gideon said, his eyes still on the photo.

"I'm working on it sir. I'll call you as soon as I've located it." Garcia turned to leave. "Penelope." Gideon's voice stopped her and she turned back. "Good work."


	5. Chapter 5

"What's the last one?"

"Page 30, line 7, word 6."

"What do we have?"

Spencer slid the paper over to Hotch.

"The path to the end began at his start.

To find her, first calm her long broken heart.

She sits in a window with secrets from her knight.

Is is adventure that keeps him out of her sight?"

"Okay so what the hell does it mean?" Morgan grunted.

Gideon took the page and pinned it up. "We know her is Rebecca Bryant."

"That's the easy part." Morgan rolled his eyes. "But what broke her heart,who is her knight and what start are we looking for. His birth, his first adventure."

"Maybe, the start is the start of the kidnapping. How he find her, how he captured her." Reid suggested.

"There were no witnesses, no reports of screams or signs of struggle."

"She was lured to him. How?"

"She was 18, in college. Maybe an Internet stalker. Someone pretending to be another student."

"Car trouble ruse?"

"The unsub has used other folks for his dirty work, maybe he paid a fellow student to bring her to him."

"We need to know more about Rebecca Bryant and the initial investigation."

"I can have a copy of the --"

"No. In person." Gideon cut JJ off in mid suggestion. "Hotch, you, Morgan and JJ head to Boston. Take to Rebecca's family, to the detectives that handled the case. Check the evidence, anything and everything."

"Okay." Hotch nodded.

"Reid and I will go back to the book and the medieval stories. See if there are any possible clues."

Hotch, Morgan and JJ scooped up their notes and headed out.

"What should I do?" Garcia asked.

"I want everything we have on the two dead men. Work histories, financial records, passport hits, travel records."

"I'm on it."

"Also, we need a record of all private air fields and private hangers at nearby airports. Get the locations and the manifests of all flights to and from over the last month. Also, we need the same for Boston with flight records for the month before Rebecca vanished."

"No problem."

"We should probably start looking for possible locations." Spencer suggested. "Build a preliminary list we can narrow down as we find clues."

"Can you handle all that?"

Garcia grinned. "Cake."

"Look for remote areas including islands. If he's seeing himself as the Fisher King then he's probably somewhere near water in a place that wouldn't be easy to find unless you knew where it was."

"With reasonable access to a private air strip or helicopter pad, right?"

Reid nodded.

"I"m on it." Garcia, clearly pleased to have a task to complete, practically skipped from the room, leaving Gideon and Spencer alone.


	6. Chapter 6

Reid sat, staring at the poem. From his expression, something was clearly troubling him.

"Reid." Gideon called quietly with no response. "Something bothering you?"

"I think there might be a different, or perhaps double meaning in the poem."

"What do you mean?"

"The second half 'She sits in a window with secrets from her knight. Is is adventure that keeps him out of her sight?' My mother's favorite spot is by the window. The staff told me that she sits at a table, calls it her study, and writes in her journals and reads the letters I send her. I send her copies of the articles about our cases. She even calls them 'my adventures' "

"And your work keeps you from visiting her very often."

"Among other things."

"If the second line of the poem is a reference to your mother, then it suggests a level of access to her. The unsub knows her basic routine, probably heard her telling proud tales of her son."

"We misjudged him before and now Elle is gone. If we screw up again." Spencer shuddered at the thoughts going through his head.

Gideon slid into a chair next to Reid. "I didn't want to worry you, but I already considered the possibility that our families could be at risk when Haley was contacted."

"You did?"

Gideon nodded. "I have some contacts with the Las Vegas Field Office. I called and asked them to run background checks on the hospital staff, especially anyone hired in the last two years. I also made arrangements for a bed at the hospital in Shiloh. There's a private jet waiting to bring your mother, with two ND agents and a doctor here. I just have to make the call."

"Thank you."

"Just doing my job, Spencer." Gideon smiled. "Now get busy on that novel, I'll be back and I expect you to have it read by then."

"Yes Sir."


End file.
